Yeah, it's a fun game. I had fun playing it. It's Fun. Yep.
It makes you feel like you're in Middle-Earth. But it also makes you feel like you're Batman.
11 out of 13 found this helpful
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colorthekid2 February 2020
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Eugenia12334520 July 2019I honestly prefer this game than the first one(Not that the first game is bad, but I like this one a whole lot better). Some of the controls I like better and some of the online I like as well.
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ericks-8689212 January 2018I've enjoyed my play of the game tremendously. Some say the game is too big, but I was disappointed to learn their are only 4 maps. What is incredible about this game, however, is that a DLC that merely adds another map or two, like the Black Gate or Barad-Dur, with content specific to Shadow Wars, could have enormous impact on the story and develop it.
I've never used the loot boxes, and Shadow Wars have been fine. Just invest the hour or so in getting seven captains (legendary or not) to the highest level you can in the training grounds. If you lose a seige, the experience you get retaking the Fort (killing warlords plus victory) moves you up 2-3 levels, so you'll be able handle the next one. As a post-game mechanic, it's WAY more fun than Riddler trophies, and the time investment actually allows for many more opportunities to play with and see the procedural-genius of the Nemesis system.
The story is way better than the original: way better boss fights at the end of the story, the story itself was way more interesting (the plot twist and setup for Shadow Wars is kind of brilliant in my opinion, and is setup by all sorts of things in the supporting stories). The villains all make a lot of sense from a Narrative perspective: you're a wraith, so the lord of the wraiths tries to assimilate you (fighting them isn't just a bunch of quick time events, but like fighting a character with all your own powers--the fact that they move at lightning speed even when you try to slow down time, that they live on the same "plain" as you is fascinating) you're undead, so someone who protects life or tries to bring back the dead fights you; you control Orcs, so of course some of the, resent that and rebel. Shelob was a really interesting character in my opinion.
Ultimately, this game goes in an ambitious direction, and I hope other games try to use their approach to enemies and landscapes and try to expand on them.
I gave it a 9 because I'm holding out for the DLC, but this is a thoroughly enjoyable game. -
ferreira066517 October 2017Regarding the loot boxes. People don't understand how this works. You do NOT have to spend money on the game more than you already spent. Do you need to do online vendettas and online fortress assaults to get spoils of war to get legendary orcs? Yes. But this is in game already. The people rating this 1 without actually understanding its not a requirement are ruining it for other people making them believe something that just isn't true.
Now that that is out of the way. The game is far better than its predecessor. They took everything that worked in the first game and tweaked it to make it better. The orcs can also cheat death which makes it for a more difficult gameplay. You also got watch who you recruit and kill. If one happens to a be a blood brother of another they will avenge the death of that brother whether they are a follower of you or not. They will turn against you. Also you have to be careful about hitting your follower captains. They can get tired of it and switch back to the other side. Others will switch back for various reasons and once they do you can't get them back. So that really only leaves one option. You can also be ambushed so be careful. I don't feel I am really that far into the game but I think a lot of things opened up now.
But anyways ignore the lootbox bs. I get a lootbox every time I complete an online vendetta and those give you gear on or around your current level. They can also give you legendary gear. I have got one full set so far. They are apparently 54 legendary gear/weapons, in the game that constantly can be upgraded if you fulfill the challenge requirement. This also goes for the Epic Sword of Dominion you could have received with a preorder. Starts at level 5 weapon and I have it up to 30 right now. Keep in mind you can't recruit orcs/trolls higher than your current level. There also seems to be no inventory limit. There is legendary loot boxes that you can get once you have accumulated enough spoils of war which you get for online vendettas and online fortress assaults. You get more for the assaults so you choose which way you wanna go about it. Believe the lootboxthing isn't nearly as negative if it really is at all as people are making it out to be. -
This game is amazing! Story DOES change Tolkien's a little bit but i don't think that is a problem. I think it's great that somebody made a game based on Tolkien's world, specially game like this. And I personally have nothing against the story in the game. For me, it was very fun experience, great graphics, great combat system, parkour, stealth, elven abilities... Nemesis system is also very fun and unique. You don't need loot boxes to beat the game, of course that then it is more difficult but where is all the fun if it's not hard. You will need to think about a lot of things (example: keeping your followers alive) and you probably will die few times against strong enemies but that is what makes this even more amazing. I recommend it to everyone who likes this type of games and especially for Tolkien fans.
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mightymuglins6 August 2018This game is by far the best friggin game I've ever played. It is insane. The gameplay is awesome. At first glance it seems to not fit into the lore of the books or movies. Like Isildur being a ringwraith (if you do all the Eltariel quests then that makes more sense) and Celebrimbor having the One Ring before Sauron (still can't figure out how that works) and Shelob being a person (I think this works perfectly fine). But most ppls main problem with the game is Isildur. But with the cinematic after you defeat Isildur it makes more sense. I think Sauron totally could have given him a ring after he died. And also Talion being a wraith fits in, the Witch King could have come back and defeated Talion and made him a "faceless one" as the other Ringwraiths would say. And that would explain why there were 8 basic wraiths and The Witch King in the books/movies. And would explain why The Witch King has control of Minas Morgal in the books/movies. I congratulate the ppl who came up with the story for this game. They should be making movies.
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Jinxxa_Wolf2 December 2023MIDDLE EARTH: SHADOW OF WAR was definitely a worthy sequel to the Tolkien Middle Earth inspired ME: Shadow of Mordor and as a hardcore, diehard Tokien fan, I'm glad to have a sequel to the Middle Earth themed games to play. Since this game came out it's been both lauded and criticized, and I can honestly understand why. My opinion is often mixed as well. I tend to lean more on the optimistic side however, and remain just grateful to have a decent Tolkien-inspired game, and honestly because I did truly enjoy this series of games, I will rate it accordingly.
As other reviewers have said before, this game had strong similarities to Assassin's Creed series, as well as other similar parkour action styled games with elements of stealth, adventure, fighting, (i.e. Assassins Creed series, Watch Dogs, inFamous, etc.) however the unpredictability of the AI for the Orcs made this game really fun and much more strategic. I enjoyed the premise of the battlefield being the main focal point, recruitment of orcs, building your own army, all the while analyzing and dismantling the enemy army. Uber cool. And the revenge aspect often made it more enjoyable as well.
While it can still be a bit repetitive, (Aren't most games when you think about it?) the graphics are pretty great, cutscenes are visually praisable, and the story is compelling enough to drive the player onwards WITHOUT overstepping too much outside of the Tolkien lore and world. I really appreciated that the writers didn't want to diminish or tarnish an epic masterpiece world by adding too much of their own. Not saying everying here is cannon, per say, but just that it didn't really feel overdone or too butchered. I enjoyed how the many collectables offered room to share lore and background to players that might not know about it. Lastly, while Talion as a character was alright, I really liked the persona and portrayal of Celebrimbor as a main lead.
Overall, this game was really fun and offered a decent ammount of play time. While, not perfect, it was still pretty great for a Tolkien / Middle Earth inspired game and I hope to get more sequels in the future, as long as they don't stray too far from the literature or take too many liberties with the source material. -
pk123315 June 2020Shadow of War takes everything from its predecessor and improves upon it. It is everything the first game should have been. The nemesis system is incredible, the numerous large maps are amazing and provide plenty of beautiful locations to explore, and the combat is nearly perfect. The focus on warfare is really what make this game stand out from other action/adventure games. Where Assassin's Creed and Arkham focus on puzzles and solving mysteries, Shadow of War focuses on mass warfare between your army and Sauron's army. It also takes many elements from the wider LotR universe and gives them some screen time here, providing connections to the films and books. This is one of the greatest games I have ever played and that stands true as I play it a second time 2 years after release.
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Toemoe9822 August 2021This game is so good that I replay it every year... The Nemesis system is awesome and makes it fun to do the Nemesis-things. After you finish the story, which clocks in at about 27 hours, you can go on in the Shadow Wars. The fun is literally never-ending... There's not much to add. The combat is perfect, the storyline is well-written, navigation in games is also without a fault and the characters (yes even the Orcs) are all interesting. I give this game a 9,3/10.
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dylan_hoffer17 October 2021Only saving grace about this game is it being set in Middle Earth. Mechanics are bad all around, from combat and movement to the ai for both allies and enemies alike. Last chapter is just repeating the same long process over and over for no reason. Complete waste of money and time.
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A_winters_wolf14 October 2020I'm a massive game, have been since my first console (Sega mastersystem) I have played/owned hundreds of videogames. So it's very rare for me to find a game that has something new and original. But this game I think is special it improves on the predecessor shadow of Mordor in many ways manly the nemesis system and the storming and defended forts and avenging other players that have died. Story is good and the gameplay is fantastic. But the real element of this game is the nemesis system we're there is an ever changing hierarchy of orcs and warlords fighting for power and your actions as a player will impact this ever changing system. Not to mention the variety of the orcs themselves. A nice touch when you kill an orc and they comeback from the dead only to be disfigured from how you killed them is a particular favourite of mine. Also hats off to the developers who listened to there fans and removed the micro transactions. I really can't praise this game enough it's probably my favourite game on the current generation of consoles on one of my favourites off all time. So if your on the fence and still thinking about playing it I say give it ago especially seeing as it's incredibly cheap now. I just hope they make another one. I think the nemesis system still has a lot to offer.
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LovecraftKaiju24 February 2024TL;DR - Will the game companies ever get the news that we do not like micro transac/loot boxes in our full priced games???
Even though they have been removed now at the time i played this game, It still is a horribly imbalanced mess with a few good things going for it.
The Good - Nemesis System - One of the best Game mechanics to come out of the gaming industry. Decent Combat Mechanics - Talions Skill tree makes for a fluid play style. Some Canon Bending story - a positive for me since I am a Tolkien Noob.
Look and Feel - The world is Breath taking though often same feeling at times, nevertheless easy to get **** into the story.
The Bad - Oh My... here we Go
The Camera - Often had an Unresponsive camera during battle and traversing which respectively makes getting stuck in the world and off screen attacks very prominent, the camera would routinely not respond to my input of a camera pan.
The Pit Fights - OMG this is the biggest offender in my opinion as all of the ferocity that you face while fighting the Enemy seem to disappear in the pit, they just poke, prod and make noises at each other compared to the fights you have with the captains.
This along with a stupidly imbalanced RNG that can have your dominated characters die to low level scrubs, this is just a stupid waste of time especially since you will spend a lot of time in the pit fights.
The Controls - It feels like the controls are fighting back at you almost all the time, Talion will often face and attack, move or preform an action in the direction opposite to where you are facing.
The highly slick Arkham series of Combat scheme that made us love the first Shadow of Mordor is downright unfinished and unpolished here.
Excessively Grindy - This game really gave me my money's worth with side-quest busy work... But most of it is meaningless busy work since the EXP for the main missions and kills seems severely throttled as u cross level 25.
No doubt designed to force players to buy the nasty loot boxes and exp boosts.. which got even worse once the said loot boxes were removed since the grind was already inbuilt into the game.
Act 4 GrindWall - Of course. But since Enough has been said about I am not gonna elaborate.
It just feels like a giant disappointment to not finish the game considering all the noted cons you have to deal with just for the True ending.
Just Youtube the final ending.
Conclusion - All in all Sadly this highly anticipated game turned out to be very underwhelming for me since Shadow of Mordor was a refreshing firestorm and scratched the itch of more Batman Arkham feels. -
desrocchi16 October 2017(I won't mention the loot-box debacle and I didn't count it in the review)
tl;dr: they added a lot of things but all unfun
As much as I liked Shadow of Mordor I expected this game to introduce more *fun* mechanics, instead they went a few steps backwards transforming what was pretty much a flawless fighting mechanic to a mess.
First of all every action from Talion takes way too much time, so much that it's very improbable to have him complete one without being interrupted by some other attack. This is also because there are too many enemies at a time attacking you from all sides: being that every single action can be interrupted by any attack and that many enemies have uncounterable attacks you are pretty much engaging in a hit and run fighting style that if very far from being epic. The auto targeting system also cannot understand which enemy you actually want to attack and sometimes you can see Talion doing a 180 and waste an execution on a minion instead of the boss you were aiming for.
Secondarily they overdid it with a uselessly bloated ability "tree": every ability can only have one modifier, no matter how many skill points you pour in it. This makes the progression useless since once you unlock a modifier you are pretty much set, you won't gain any more power by leveling more. Sure, you can choose a more suitable set of modifications for each encounter: but it just means spending more time in the selection menu than actually playing the game.
The loot, even the legendary one, has such poor choice of affixes that some of the requirements needed to unlock them makes you say, "eff it, I'll just throw it away." "Gain 4 elf shot when killing someone while mounting a karagor"? "Increase crit damage of 29% against enemies on fire"? "Gain 0.7 points of might when killing a frozen enemy"? Oh please, don't let me have too much power! -.-
"Land 5 headshots on poisoned enemies", "kill 5 enemies while you are poisoned"... and I should do this so I can have a 22% chance to poison an enemy hit by a headshot? No thanks.
Lastly, they created all these new enemy abilities but did not check to see if some of those were overpowered when added together.
The second warlord I had to face was pretty much invulnerable to any kind of attack from the front, he could not be vaulted or disrupted or frozen, arrow immune, he sticked with his back to the wall so that I could not run behind him, all the while an infinite horde of minions kept coming at me and archers rained arrows from the balconies.
The only weakness he had was that he was vulnerable to executions, so I had to build up enough might to perform one and run like a headless chicken towards the boss hoping no arrow and no ranged attack from his 8 archers and 4 hunters would hit me before finally landing a hit that would take about 20% off of his life.
Once I finally did it I did not feel like I overcame a challenge, I felt like I had to cheat through a badly implemented mechanic. -
VOIIIXI9 January 2023One of the greatest games ever made! I have never been this addicted to playing a game in a long time. The Nemesis is honestly the greatest innovation in any video game ever, to this day. The complexity and thought put into the system are truly commendable and needs to be implemented into games more. I know the game is very known and popular, but it is still underrated in my opinion. It is one of the smartest and most fun games I've ever played, and I have the upmost respect for the devs. Deserves an 11/10. I almost never write reviews for games, but I said for this one I need to do it. This game needs to be appreciated more. It should've been game of the year and in the top 10 games of all time just because of how intelligent of a game it is.
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jprice-3825316 July 2023I've had Shadow Of War since 2019 and it is probably one of the most addictive games I have ever stayed grinding on. There's so much in this game that makes it a very deep, engaging experience. The amount of story quests you play, the amount of powers you get to unlock, the amount of upgrades to your character, the amount of locations you get to go to, the amount of people you meet, the amount of creatures you run into and especially the numerous amount of ORCS that you meet! Which I personally think the Orcs are the BEST thing about this game. They are the ones that keep you coming back!! You meet one, they talk to you, they kill you, you go back to try to kill them, but a different meets you, then that one kills you, then you recruit one, it fights for you, but then it betrays you later and so on! It is endless! I've probably met at least 500 different orcs so far of all different powers, voices, sizes, heights and weapons. What makes it even better is that every SINGLE ORC has a story behind them! Meaning they each seem to come from a different background, everytime you listen to them talk to you. At times it can be so upsetting, challenging, annoying, but that's what makes it so damn enjoyable. I still have to play the other two expansions. There's no doubt I'll get my hands on those when the time comes. I really wish more people played this game. It is too extraordinary to miss out on...
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eslamdahab21 December 2023This is hands down one of the best games ever made, it was faithful enough to the the books and the lore yes they added some things like the storytelling and the orcs funny dark humor dialogs and interactions but they nailed it and stayed faithful to the lore and the general mode of middle earth, it actually made the game better more engaging fun and amazing journey instead of fighting lifless orcs and personally i think tolkien would have been proud, the nemesis system is just legendary, the orcs remember you now and they know what you did they are not another loser npc's they feel real with unbelievable amount of diversity in their looks and abilities, the story was one of the greatest i have ever experienced about middle earth i loved it to the last second,but gameplay was on another level it was just amazing and fun, i am very proud of this game and it will stay on my recommendation list forever and there is nothing i would love to see more in life than a worthy sequel for this legendary game.
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This is like venom let there be carnage the action is the same and violence too this is similar to venom 2 imagine if venom let there be carnage was rated M like this game would be bloody for sure.
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Lefteris-Anagnostopoulos28 February 2021After 17 hours (nemesis difficulty) I can honestly say that I'm abandoning this game. I have no desire to complete it because IT IS SO BORING!
Honestly, BORING is the best word for it. Boring protagonist, boring story, boring and repetitive gameplay. Even the novelty of brutalizing Orcs and slashing their bodies wears off after 20 hours of doing the same thing over and over again.
I bought the game only for the Nemesis System which was the only saving grace of the original (Shadow of Mordor) and honestly it's great in this one too. The Orcs and the siege battles are excellent but guess what... after 15 hours even that becomes boring.
I enjoyed the System for what it was but I can't force myself to complete this game like I did with the first one. At least the first game is shorter in duration.
Thank god I bought it on a sale... -
rauldiago14 October 2021Un juego que podría haber sido de 10, se lo cargan completamente.
Con un inpu tlag que mucha gente considera incluso que lo hace injugable, unos controles que recuerdan a la peor época de Assassins Creed, diría que bastante peor de hecho (como tener un capitán debajo, marcado para atacar con sigilo, y en el momento de darle se cambia a un uruk normal y corriente que está a 3 metros, algo qué pasa muuuuy a menudo).
Es un juego tremendamente desesperante, no por la dificultad en si, sino porque esta es injusta. Capitanes que te sobrepasan en 8 o 10 niveles empiezan a llamarse unos a otros, en 3 movimientos se han adaptado a todo tu repertorio de ataques, alarmas que no se pueden parar sumando a lo anterior enemigos infinitos (aparecen literalmente de la nada).
Este sistema némesis del que tanto parecen enorgullecerse tienes demasiados agujeros.
Y no es que no le haya dado una oportunidad, me he pasado el juego, pero me da mucha pena que se hayan cargado un juego con tanto potencial y que no se hayan molestado en arreglarlo con parches y reediciones. -
xtremepunk3 November 2021The only reason this doesn't get a 9 from me is the UNSKIPPABLE orc chat! It was infuriating!
Yes i get you have some pish to say but i don't care, just let me skip it.
But other than that, i loved it, really felt like running round middle-earth.